


Dance with Feet of Stone

by governess_of_floods



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Artist!John, M/M, Other, Sculpture, a tiny bit of blood if you're not keen on that (not in a violent way though), kind of Pygmalion & Galatea?, this just sort of happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 19:08:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1237705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/governess_of_floods/pseuds/governess_of_floods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is a sculptor. He is about to start his magnum opus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dance with Feet of Stone

It stood in the centre of the room, a block of white marble pure and blank, compelling in its solidity.

 

John was ready for it, had been waiting for it, the studio was littered with sketches, with lumps of clay and smaller studies in stone, but now it was here he was seized with a curious reverence. The stone, taller than him, seemed to demand it.

 

John went up to the block, his steps measured and quiet. Slowly, he stretched out his solid, craftsman's hands- the white air around him still and holding its breath- to touch his fingertips to the stone for the first time, to feel the chill of the marble, sacred as a relic, under his blood-warmed skin.

 

He had it under his hands, palms pressed up against its surface. He let out a breath. This was always the most terrifying part of his work, the start of a sculpture; once embarked on, he could allow himself to be wrapped up in creation, to experiment, but to start, to take the first step, was to mar the face of this beautiful thing irrevocably. It was here he was always afraid, the nagging doubt at the back of his mind the loudest. Was his belief in his ability to create pure arrogance? Would he reduce this thing- this monolithic blank that held the potential for anything, for beauty so true and wonderful it would bring poets to tears- into rubble with one false stroke from a trembling hand? Especially now, John needed to collect his courage. This would be the most beautiful thing he had ever made. This would be his swan-song.

 

The moments hung heavy in the silence as John stood there, linked to the stone by his hands. Then he stirred, sliding his hands over its face, feeling for cracks or flaws, for weaknesses and danger zones he combed his marble. There were none. The stone was exquisite.

 

That night John dreamed of marble, waiting for him in the centre of the studio. He dreamed of whispering white, calling and calling until at last he stood before it. Then the stone grew and grew, loomed over him and frosted over until John stood star-tiny under an immense creaking wall of ice.

 

But as he stood there, barefoot, he felt no cold.

 

*

 

The next morning dawned bright, streaking John's face with the pale gold of January sun. John stretched, flexed his fingers, curled his toes, and felt himself alive and alert. He dressed swiftly, in paint-streaked jeans and old baggy jumper, made himself a thermos flask of tea and left his flat.

 

The thrum of anticipation sang under his skin all the way to his studio, as he walked briskly down the street, crossing the road here and there to walk in sunshine rather than shadows, where the pavement was still cold from the night and sent a chill through the soles of his shoes. It buzzed more and more insistently as he drew closer and closer, and when he at last reached the door to turn his key he almost had butterflies in his stomach. He opened the door, and stepped through.

 

It was still there (of course it was still there, John thought to himself, where would a lump of stone that size go?) and still eerily beautiful. Light streamed through the wide windows, turning the floating dust golden. The air held that promise that sunny mornings always do. The stone stood there, waiting. John turned to his workbench, ran a finger over his chisels, handles polished by use. He selected one carefully, took up his hammer and moved back to the marble. He took a deep breath and struck the first blow.

 

*

 

The next few weeks passed in a blur of stone, smashed first into a rough outline, then beaten little by little into sharper focus, bent to John's will, pliant under his hands. Over and over the chisel came down, biting into the marble, the motion aching and yearning and never enough, as John worked until the last drop of sunlight was wrung out of the sky and the room grew dark, day after day after day, as he locked up the studio with a last lingering glance at the marble- the sculpture, as it slowly but surely emerged from its lumpen constraints- as he went back to his flat to spend the evening sketching more studies of limbs and strong hands and soft flesh over hard bone. It would be perfect, this statue, and his, all his.

 

*

 

Harry called, one evening.

 

“We're all going out on Friday. There's a pub quiz at the Cross Keys. Do you want to come?”

 

“I'm working on a sculpture. Maybe another time? When it's finished?”

 

“John, no-one's heard from you for weeks. Are you sure you don't want to come?”

 

“I've nearly finished it. I want it to be... perfect. I'll let you know when it's done. We can celebrate.”

 

“John! Being around people won't spoil you for your art. We are not that barbaric. Come out! It'll be good for you.”

 

“I know it won't spoil me. I just want to keep a... clear head. It's so nearly finished. I'll come out when it's done.”

 

Harry laughed.

 

“You are ridiculous.” she said. “Be a sighing artist then and finish your piece. And then you'll come out. Promise?”

 

“I promise. I'll speak to you soon, okay?”

 

*

 

The marble was forming shape under the blade of John's chisel, becoming unmistakably human. John stepped back to take it in, to make sure it was still right. It would be a man, John's very own David. The stone already skimmed the outline of a hard chest and wide shoulders, but at that moment the sculpture reminded John of nothing so much as an immodest Venus; marble still pooled jagged round the man's feet like sea-foam, clinging to his legs where John had not yet smoothed them down. John had begun to work an outline of curls on his head, and their faintness gave the impression of dampness, of having just emerged from the water. The statue stood there, feet planted wide, arms slightly out. He gave off a faint air of defiance. “This is what I am. Look at me. Take me as I am,” he might have been saying. John smiled to himself; not half finished and already he was imagining his work to be proud in its beauty?

 

The statue's face was still a blank.

 

John bent to work on its feet.

 

*

 

John's hands were turning rougher still. Older, he thought. In his quiet flat- ordered and still; in sharp contrast to the glorious chaos of his studio, his flat was where he slept, not lived- he stretched out his hands palm-up to examine them. They seemed strange, the way hands always do when one really looks at them. Blood vessels twisted round pale bone and muscle like bindweed, skimming the surface before disappearing deep into his skin. Lines bit deeply into his palm, scored by constant use. A long time ago, a girl had taken his hand and told him that she could read his future in it. He hadn't believed her, but had let her trace her fingertip lightly over his palm, sending sparks up his arm at the chaste intimacy. She'd told him he was lucky in love; later that night he'd kissed her, lips wine-sweet and soft, and taken her to bed.

 

Perhaps you could read a man's life in his hands, John thought. That long line sweeping across the full span of his palm was his life line, wasn't it? Imperfect but tenacious, it was a deep groove in his skin, trailing off eventually on the turn from palm to back. The line above it- his heart line?- was deep, curved and short. Another line swooped around the base of his thumb, leading to his wrist. Maybe that was his life line, actually. John smiled; clearly even if his hands contained his fate, he couldn't read it.

 

What he could read, though, was his past. Calluses from his tools hard on his fingers, the badge of his craft. Ghostly imperfections, the tiny marks of old burns from careless cooking and tipsy bonfires, stretching out to the flames with the invulnerability of youth. He remembered scorching the back of his knuckle; they'd been on a beach, ringed stones to make a fire out of driftwood from the sea, sat under the stars in an enchanted bubble of youth and life, wreathed in smoke and the fuzziness of cheap cider. He'd set a bleached plank on the flames, balancing it with such intense focus and solemnity that he didn't notice the rest of the fire until a pale tongue shot out to lick at him. He jerked his hand back, the ritual broken, and laughed with the joy of knowing himself alive.

 

This sculpture had marked him, would mark him. His hands were scuffed, gritted with charcoal and stone-dust. On his index finger was a gash where the chisel had slipped, healing now but deep enough to scar, John thought, and was oddly glad. It seemed fitting, that the creation should in some small way change its creator.

 

He had bled hard, fast, the bite of the chisel's blade lighting-quick, and the scarlet had dripped thickly, slowly, down the statue's fingers. They were beautiful now, white as the moon but seeming soft, long fingers strong and sinewy, muscles and veins and tendons as visible as John's own. John's blood snaked down the lines of the statue's palm, and it was almost believable that this creature of stone was bleeding bright red blood. John stared.

 

Smiled, wolfishly, and reached out his thumb to rub the pooled blood into a smear over the marble. The red faded into the stone, leaving it marred, the pink of a mottled rose.

 

*

 

It grew closer to completion. As John worked, his cuts were smaller and smaller. It became harder to twist the stone completely to his will. As the statue shifted from stone to marble man, John mused fancifully, it was almost as though it was slowly awaking under his touch, asserting its own self. It was not quite the man of John's studies and mock-ups; the material shaped the sculpture subtly. John matched the ethereality of cool marble, letting the statue become otherworldly and alien. A demi-god in the classical tradition of marble statues, John thought. There was something intensely human in the need to depict something more than mortal.

 

The body was complete. Long, tall and lean it stood, its musculature sharp; it stood there proudly, looking for all the world as though its power was just waiting, coiled, simmering under its skin, ready to be called into action and spring the sculpture into life.

 

Only the head now remained unfinished. It stared at John with the merest approximation of a human face. Waiting.

 

*

 

That night, John dreamed he went to his studio. He opened the door softly, and entered silently. The studio was lit by the sodium of streetlamps outside, streaming in through the tall windows. The light pooled in the centre of the room, over the figure sitting there. He sat on the stone podium with his back to John, the pale light warming his body in a way that sunlight could not, glossed by it rather than displayed stark and cold and white-harsh as the daylight saw him. His knees were drawn up to his chest and his body hunched over them, arms wrapped round himself and head down. He looked achingly lonely, a moon-child dropped down from the sky and lost, John thought. He looked as though being earth-bound was strange to him, his shoulders naked without wings.

 

He moved, sighed, and his skin rippled, silvery, like the reflection of moonlight on dark water.

 

John stood there, barely breathing.

 

The statue stilled. Listened. Slowly it rose to its feet, magnificent. It turned, turned its face to the door, and John stopped breathing.

 

His face was white as the rest of his body, his lips curved and pale, not a spot of colour on his high, high cheekbones, in his Byronically ruffled hair (how had his hair become that dishevelled, John wondered; it was not how he had planned it) and on his brows. But his eyes... the statue blinked, came closer.

 

His eyes were the colour of the sea, swirling with storms and sunlight and shadow.

 

John could not drop his gaze.

 

The man standing in front of him was heartstoppingly, heartbreakingly beautiful. He had stopped, and stood as still as John. The distance between them yawned huge and empty, dust hanging in the air like planets. They stood there for an eternity, motionless.

 

*

 

In the sunlight John sat in his kitchen, charcoal on his fingers, and drew and re-drew studies for his statue's face from a fragile dream.

 

*

 

It was finished, the statue was finished.

 

Perfect, unearthly, with all the beauty of moonlight he stood tall in the centre of the room, his arms by his sides, his shoulders square, his lips soft and ever so slightly parted, as if he could be breathing gently, peace on his face and his white eyelids closed.

 

Finished.

 

John reached a trembling hand up to stroke its cheek. It was cold and smooth under his calloused hand. His hand that had hurt for it, sweated blood to bring it into the world, and now the statue stood there, proud, far more beautiful than John could ever dream of being.

 

John felt all at once empty. This was his masterpiece, his legacy. He would never again create anything as beautiful as this, and the thought made him dizzy and bewildered. He would send his statue into the world and it would leave him behind. It hurt in the pit of his stomach.

 

John looked up into the statue's perfect face. He smoothed a thumb over its white cheekbone. Slowly, he went up on tiptoe, till he was level with its face. Softly, he brought his warm lips to the statue's cold marble ones.

 

There was a moment of stillness.

 

John pulled back.

 

White eyelids opened to the colour of the sea.

 

“John,” marble lips whispered.

 

“I was waiting for you.”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Um, so this is the first thing I've ever posted... if anyone wants to give me feedback I'll love you a lot!


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